Thanksgiving? Bob Saget?

Thursday night I attended formal hall with my advisor and her other advisees. It was Thanksgiving (shockingly, the British don't celebrate Thanksgiving) , so it was a little strange not to be with my family and not to have turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie that day; instead, I ate an interesting chicken and pudding meal (good, but not quite the same as Mom Sisti's fixin's). I learned more about English cuisine as I tried the pudding, expecting a dessert-ish dish. Oh my no. Pudding apparently means anything that is steamed. So, that meat was less than sweet, to put it mildly. I did throughly enjoy the cheese tray and dessert though (of course) and discovered a new vegetable that I absolutely love: parsnip. I pretty much (discreetly, hopefully) devoured the whole veggie tray when I learned it had parsnips.

So, all in all, it was a nice evening... I think the first Thanksgiving away was inevitably going to feel a little weird -- it is almost as if the holiday never happened. At least Mom Snyder sent an absolutely fabulous care package that week, so I felt like I was connected to home in some regard.

On Friday night, Linacre had a pantomime performance of Puss In Boots. It was basically a play put on by students in the college, where (interestingly) most of the guys played girl roles (very Shakespearean I suppose). I find it amazing that the guys here are so completely comfortable with dressing in dresses -- this phenomena happens at least once a week, whether its a panto or a bop. There is always an excuse to dress in drag. Oxford boys are quite comfortable with their manliness. I still think there will be giggles when, 10 years from now, these people are running countries, and the pictures of them stylin' in stiletto's surface...

After an another amazing Thai dinner, we stumbled on to a cool Christmas parade through town. Hundreds of kids with paper mache lanterns flooded the streets, and they lit Chrismas lights all throughout town and lit up the big Christmas tree on Broad Street. They even had a light show on Bailiol College's ancient walls. It was beautiful. The classical music they played was charming and haunting and suited the mood (they even played one lovely song that I remember from my mom's musical jewelry box -- it made me think of home). This came to a screeching halt, however, when somehow, into the music play list, slipped Eye of the Tiger. Oh yeah, also strange, Will swears he saw Bob Saget.

On Saturday night, we attended yet another bop, this time at Green Templeton College, a newer graduate college. The theme was vampires, so the costumes were interesting. I wish I had known to bring my whole Halloween costume stash with me to Oxford!

Christ Church Regatta!

So the big race finally arrived -- the Christ Church Regatta! We arrived to the boathouse Wednesday (day 1 of the 4 day competition) pumped and ready to row (literally, the girls were singing the Rocky theme song as we placed the boat in the water). We were racing Pembroke B, a good team, so we had to bring our A-Game. After ramming into a few boats (the water levels were starting to rise, and it started to rain!) we got to the starting line, and waited for the GO! And then, we were off! We were calm (unlike the last regatta) and strong...and quickly passed Pembroke. Unfortunately, Pembroke, half way through the race, rammed into another boat, so the race stopped. But even once we restarted, (and they managed to keep their boat from colliding), we totally kicked their butts! Race one - total victory. This of course, got us totally pumped for the next round on Thursday...

Ready to race!

Looks closer than it was...

After the big win!

The college came to cheer us on...

Extremely sadly, however, the rest of the regatta was cancelled due to rising water levels. I was incredibly disappointed, but it was out of our control, so I had to move on. I'm so grateful I at least got to row in a few races before it was called off -- I'm lucky in that regard. And it's only making me want to row even more next term...

Next term, bumps races are on the agenda. That's when you literally try to ram into the boat in front of you to win. Of course, I think this sounds absolutely awesome. Count me in!

Week Seven - Harrod's, Regattas, Panto, and yet more bops...

Before I start on Week Siete (that's "seven" for all you gringos), there is something I must show you. After much anticipation -- drumroll please -- I'd like to unveil my little naked lady sculpture. Check her out!

I have to say, I'm very pleased with the result. Not only is her head still attached, but she also looks quite comfortable to me as she just lays and chills on my desk. What do you think?

Ok, so on to Week Seven... I better do this in parts, because I have a lot of pictures...

On Tuesday, my class travelled to London for a lecture at the Institute of Education. The lecture was interesting, but (I hate to admit), the highlight of the trip was hitting Harrod's Chocolate Bar with my friend Jennifer.

We had ice cream and cookies...and just stared at the mountains of chocolate -- a feast for the eyes. If you could imagine it in chocolate form, they had it ... chocolate fondue, chocolate brownies, chocolate milkshakes, chocolate cookies, chocolate truffles, chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream, chocolate coffee, chocolate bread -- you get the idea. What a beautiful place.

We also did a little browsing. This was the most expensive set of lingerie I've ever seen (1,000 pounds, I believe). We took this picture right before the guards approached to stop our shenanigans.

OMG. The shoes. They were displayed on little pedestals like works of art -- it was my kind of museum. I might have squeezed my fat foot into an 800-quid stiletto or two.

And this is the gingerbread cookie that Jennifer got me for our train ride. Does she know me or what?! J - you rock.

Harrod's was just amazing. The food halls were enormous -- each room was dedicated to a different food group: fruits and vegetables, breads, meats, sushi (ok, not a food group, but still fab), and then of course the dessert room (a food group in vanessa-land). I spent a half hour in there salivating over the glass at the pies, cakes, and candy. The four or so floors of clothing were just unreal. If you want it, it's at Harrod's (for an insane price, of course). The elevator system made me feel like I was in Disneyland with the music playing and Eqyptian theme with columns and statues. Seriously - it was an experience.

After shopping, eating, and lecture listening, we went to a pub with our class (and cool teacher). The only less than stellar part of the day was rushing out of the pub, and running at least a mile or two (with stomachs full of bangers, mash, and chips) to catch the train, only to be literally two minutes late and find out that the train was --for the first time in English history--on time. Freaking trains.

The Big Race

All that hard work rowing finally paid off -- I made the "A Boat" for our first regatta, the Nephthys Regatta!! I was beyond excited. I had an absolute blast preparing for the big day (all the girls got matching socks with Linacre colors). We got to the Isis River an hour or so early to warm up and get our boat to the starting line. I had butterflies as we got in place for the race and they started calling the "Attention!" instructions so that we would square our blades for the start. And then, we were off! We were strong and steady the first race, and completely killed the competition (poor ladies of Wolfson College!) You can see the video here -- it was just ridiculously cool. I'm the third seat from the back (the power seat! aw yeah. which should be comical for anyone who has seen my "muscles.")

So we made it to the second round. Our second race, however, was a little messier. The New College girls were tough, and beat us by half a boat length. They went on to win the race, however, so we couldn't feel too terrible about it. That was probably my favorite experience in Oxford thus far. Competing in a rowing race for my college made me feel incredibly proud and like I was really a part of a team. I've missed that.

Our "A Boat" Crew (Lila, Tamara, Alyssa, Melissa, Hannah, me, Franciska, and Erica -- in seat order!) holding our coxswain (Daniel).

Check out those socks!

Our crew before the race...

Hanging out at the Boat House.

The second race -- look how close it is!

We celebrated that night by hanging out in the Common Room for refreshments and going to the Celler. And on Sunday night, we watched True Blue, a movie about the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race... we did this to psych ourselves up for the HUGE Christ Church Regatta which starts on Wednesday of Week 7!!! I'm SO excited!!! Stay tuned...

Week Six - rotary, meteors, particle physics, and bopping...

Week Six - here goes...

Monday started with a trip to Newbury where I made a presentation to the Newbury Rotary Club. The 39 club members (all male save for one police woman) made me feel very welcome. Chris, one of the Rotarians, picked me up from Oxford and took me to the beautiful Donnington Valley Hotel for the meeting (where I might have had a quick cider in the lobby, thanks to Chris, to calm the nerves). The meal was fantastic and the conversation really fun (they wanted to know all about Florida and alligators and hurricanes...) and the presentation went well. And then, another Rotarian, Tony, kindly drove me all the way back to Oxford. After getting lost only like 4 times, we made it to the dorm. My sense of direction has not improved since crossing the pond.

On Tuesday, I spent 30 minutes at 9:30pm in the dark, freezing English outdoors waiting for a meteor shower. It is quite possible that my British friends played a little trick on me telling me that there was going to be a fantastic meteor shower that night -- I started to wonder about this when I started to loose feeling in my fingers. Needless to say, no meteors shot through the sky. For a brief second, I thought I spotted one, but alas, it was a plane.

On Wednesday, I went to a ridiculously cool dinner at New College. A bunch of Linacre College students had dinner with a group of New College students as part of a "college exchange dinner." We met at their bar for some port wine (so classy! I felt slightly out of place in my fishnets), where the conversations revolved around (no joke) algebraic geometry and sub particle physics. (I mostly did a lot of head nodding and "ohhh"-ing, as, shockingly, I have fairly limited knowledge of subatomic particles. Funny, I must have missed that class in law school.) After the interesting convo, we had a gourmet meal in their 13th century dining hall. I'm not exaggerating when I say it looked just like the Harry Potter movie. See below for yourself. It was unreal. After a few glasses of wine, particle physics made so much more sense.

On Friday, I hit Kellogg College's "Glitter and Glamour Bop" with some friends. (see pic below). Good times.

Before I go, I have a few more items to add to the "you know you're back in college when" list:

1. At least once a week, you stay up all night long to write an essay. No matter how much I plan ahead, it seems to happen each week. I figure if I can stay up all night bopping, I can stay up writing.

2. You are sharing a combo washer/dryer with 9 other people so you no longer have the luxury of taking the washer/dryer time to dry your clothes. Hence, your space heater is covered in wet underwear.

3. The dorm shower is so small that you can't bend over to pick up soap without risking severe head trauma on one of the spouts. Our shower is quite similar to a cruise ship shower, sans the rocking. (Interestingly, I also feel like I'm on a cruise ship when I'm in the Sainsbury grocery store -- whenever the grocery guy announces a sale item, it sounds like the ship captain announcing the midnight buffet on the lido deck.)

4. You spend a few hours sitting on a mat in the gym, being silly and gossiping with your new girlfriends. So fun. I love college.

Week Five - tea, sculpting, dancing, date night, and pub quizzes!

Week Five -- we're mid term! It is flying by WAY too quickly. I just want to freeze things right here...life is too good. Let's see, during week five, I had some unbelievable experiences.

On Monday, I had traditional English afternoon tea with Jola at The Randolph Hotel (see picture above) -- this amazing old hotel with the best tea and biscuits in town. They gave us each our own pots of tasty tea and then served a three-tiered platter of sandwiches, desserts, and scones. My eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when I saw this. Yes, I ate every layer, to the point that I actually got sick (so I missed most of dinner at the University Club) -- but it was sooooo worth it. I still dream about those desserts (along with the mall sales, in pounds. *see last post if this makes no sense.)

On Thursday, I went to a clay modeling class at Christ Church College art room. I can't describe how surreal this was. I climbed about 92 stairs to get to the tower of Christ Church (built in 1546, where they filmed a lot of Harry Potter) and entered the art room which resembled an attic. The centuries old ceiling was wood painted with murals and college crests. There was a pile of clay waiting for me at a desk, and all the desks were placed in a big circle facing towards the middle of the room where a large table was placed. The teacher, Sue, welcomed me to the class and reassured me that I needed no prior sculpting experience, so I took my seat and waited. What happened next was, well, unreal. Sue hopped up on the table and started discussing various poses with the other teacher, Peter. At that point, I realized that we'd be sculpting an actual person. The clay modeling class brochure advertised that it was "from a life model", which I thought meant we'd be sculpting things we saw in life. (i.e. I had thought they'd put a pot or something on the table and we'd replicate it.) I had no clue it meant we'd be sculpting a person. So, when the model arrived, stripped, and laid completely naked on this table, in the preplanned pose Sue settled on, about, oh 3 feet from my desk, I held my breath and tried not to move so that my utter shock wouldn't show. "Oh my gosh- she's totally naked" is all I could think for the first 10 minutes. I felt bad looking directly at her, but then Sue came up to coach me and noticed that my little clay pile looked nothing like the "curves of the model" (as she so eloquently stated), so she started pointing to different body parts to help me see the lines, and thus, I was forced to look up. I'm sure I turned beet red and started to sweat, especially when she told the lady next to me "you're focusing too much on the nipple." It took all my strength not to burst into laughter; I basically choked on my gum instead. Once I relaxed, I had a fantastic time working with the clay, and I think my little naked lady sculpture came out quite good. It's being fired right now, so I don't have it back yet, but I imagine it to be very life like. Let's just hope the head doesn't fall off. (It already did once during sculpting, hence the concern. I must have been focusing too much on the nipple.)

I must not have been horrible at this sculpting thing either because Peter, the Christ Church art fellow, offered to give me tutorial classes on oil painting. I cannot wait to take him up on this. Taking oil painting classes from an old artist in the tower of a 15th century building is just, well, a dream.

On Friday night, Linacre turned the Common Room into a Blind Date show, where some lucky ladies and gentlemen got the chance to interrogate three people of the opposite sex, that they couldn't see, to decide which they would like to take on a free date. It was pretty hilarious. Afterwards, we all went to The Bridge, a pretty cool club with less sticky floors than Kukui. The next morning, we went for a traditional English breakfast. (see below) Eggs, ham, sausages, tomatoes, smothered with cheese and baked beans. Mmmmm. Nothing says breakfast like baked beans.

On Saturday, Will and I went out for a fabulous dinner (best in England yet!) at Jamie's Italian. (It's one of Jamie Oliver's restaurants.) We had yummy bruschetta, veggie salad, chips (garlic french fries), pumpkin risotto, and spicy sausage pasta. I loved every bite, so much so that I couldn't even make room for dessert (which means I was extremely full -- see above scone-eating incident). Then we went to see a (terrible) movie, 2012, at a really cool old movie theater. We sat in the fancy seats in the balcony area where you can pretty much sprawl out on the comfy couches. Perfect date night.

Finally, on Sunday, we went for a walk in the huge park next to the dorm. This is where I tried out the waterproofness of my new wellies as I jumped in the duck pond. Also, another very exciting event, we ordered groceries online from Tesco for the first time. Now I don't have to bike with 50 pounds of raw meat and baguette on my back. On Sunday night, we went to Far From the Madding Crowd, a really cool pub nearby. They had quiz/curry night, so we ate some fabulous curry (round two of my curry adventures, this time with more manly curry) and then participated in a pub quiz. Basically the only questions we got right involved Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and AK47's -- so sad. Our team, Good Times, finished second from last. We considered that a total victory.

Week Four...clubbing and bonfires

Week Four was crazy busy as usual (in a great way though, as usual). Highlights included a Crew Dinner on Friday night and Bonfire Night on Saturday night. For the crew dinner, the Linacre Rowing Club got together with the Wolfson/St. Cross Rowing Club and we went to a great little indian restaurant for some delicious curry. (This was my first curry experience -- and I loved it! I have to admit that the crew said I had the "wimpy" curry, but I have to ease myself in! You can't go full curry in your first sitting.) Then we went over to the Wolfson College Bar for some pool and chillaxing. (We also exchanged lessons on American v. English lingo -- e.g. I taught them what pinky-swearing is and what it means to give someone a run for their money, all over a shoddy game of pool where these phrases/actions came in handy. I had no idea how many solely American phrases I used until then when I noticed that, at least half of the time, people had no clue what I was saying.) And then, I had my first Oxford Club experience at Kukui. Once I crossed the club threshold, it was as if I transported to Miami -- it was full of American pop music, plastic palm trees, 15$ drinks, and sticky floors. The only real difference I noticed was the hour-long coat check line. (I've never had to check a coat before!) As the ladies checked their coats, I was in disbelief -- they were actually wearing Miami-style strapless dresses under their huge coats. I have no idea how they didn't freeze their butts off on the way there. Next time I'll know to dress a little fancier and then just pile 9 coats over it. Bye, bye huge bulky sweater. It's Kukui time.

Oh yes, all the ladies (and some of the guys, scarily) painted their nails Linacre colors. (Our rowing blades are yellow with black x's.) My fingers look like little oars. So hot. After seeing my nails, I understand why we had to go to 8 different stores to find one that sells yellow polish.

We also went to Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night. It's an annual celebration in England where they celebrate the night they stopped Mr. Fawkes and other conspirators from burning down Parliament. They do this by lighting bonfires (and, quite morbidly burning a statue of poor Mr. Fawkes) and shooting off fireworks. We went to the town celebration which had a carnival complete with rides and games (we shot a cross bow -- awesome!), enormous bonfire, 14,000 pounds of fireworks, and some delicious sausages and fudge (a strange, yet delicious combination). After that, still craving food apparently really badly, we stopped at one of the many Greek food van's that are parked all around the city center late at night, cooking meat barehanded right out of the van, just waiting for the hungry partyers that can overlook the swarms of flies, gloveless food-preparing, and towels that are used to wipe the food prep counter, and, good lord, the floor. Yes, we were those people on that night. I haven't been able to look at hummus the same since.

Yasmine and me warming up by the bonfire.

Hanging out at Magdalen College after the festivities...

This week I also saw my first English movie in an English movie theater. We saw An Education. It was really neat since the movie was about a girl who goes to Oxford, so we were watching scenes in Oxford while sitting in a movie theater, in Oxford. You can appreciate its beauty even more on the big screen. It was around this time (after seeing the movie) that I started having dreams in pounds (as in, I would have my familiar dream where I enter the mall and everything is on sale and I go insane, but instead of checking out pricetags in dollars, that's right, they were in pounds). Since I know they say people really learn a language when they start dreaming in the new language, I'm going to take these new dreams of mine to mean that I'm really acclimating to my new culture. Now if I can only start putting x's on the end of my emails/texts (everyone here does it, and I still can't figure out if it means x as in a person's signature or if it means kiss like xo does - but that seems like an awful lot of emotion for a text; I'm just not comfortable putting a potential kiss mark at the end of a text about what time lecture class is. call me crazy), then I'll really be British!

Goosebumps at Evensong

Play the above video while you read this -- you won't be able to see anything, but you can listen. We went to Evensong at New College during Week 3. Evensong is basically a mass in the beautiful college chapel that is sung. So, 20 young boys and some older men sing together instead of the priest reading everything. It was unreal. You heard the young boys' voices - they sounded like angels - as the echoes bounced off the wood-paneled engraved seats and marble statues, and you smelled the burning incense. The chapel was dark, lit only by candlelight, so you saw shadows bouncing off the ancient sculptures. It was impossible not to be overwhelmed by the intensity of the experience and feel something spiritual. When they started singing, I got goosebumps.

Outside the Church.

Stonehenge!

We woke up the morning of November 1 to the sounds of a hurricane outside of our window -- Winter had arrived (conveniently on the day of our Stonehenge trip). The wind was literally howling outside, the trees were bent over sideways, and it was pouring buckets of rain. Determined not to let the weather pooh-pooh our plans, we forged on to the rail station on our bikes, in our rain jackets, in this hurricane, to catch our train. We now understand why people have rain pants. Our jeans were so wet it looked like we just jumped in a pool -- and they stayed that way, for the next 5 hours. Our daytrip started off with a (wet) bang!

Stonehenge!

Will pondering the henge...

All of our British friends warned us not to make a special trip to see this "pile of rocks", but we couldn't help ourselves -- it's Stonehenge, for goodness sake. So, needless to say, we weren't expecting much. I don't know if it was the low expectations or the sheer majesty and mystery of this place, but we found Stonehenge to be pretty darn awesome. Just knowing that those stones have been there for over 4,500 years and thinking about how the heck the men of that day got them there, is well, unbelievable. When the sun snuck in between the massive stones (for the maybe 10 minutes of sun we got that day), it was just beautiful. You can actually tell which month it is by looking at which stones the sun shines through -- very cool. Well worth the trip (or at least the trip getting there, wet butts and all -- getting back is a totally different story, to be told shortly.)

We also checked out the cute city of Salisbury. Salisbury has a huge, beautiful cathedral which was built in the 1200's. It has the tallest church spire in the whole UK and the oldest working medieval clock in the world. We spent a lot of time walking around the church grounds, admiring the early English architecture, and checking out the old paintings and sculptures inside. Then we went for a fabulous meal at The Haunch of Venison -- a 1320's pub with creaky, crooked floors and much charm. It was such a great day.

Until we tried to leave.

We got a painful introduction to the weaknesses of the English rail system as we arrived for our 9:30pm train home. We had four connections, none of which we made. Each train was delayed - punctuality is apparently not a trait of the rail system. We missed the first connection, waited for an hour for the next train, missed the second connection, and then waited for two hours, outside at a bus stop, in the dark, in the rain and freezing cold, for a transfer bus to the next rail station, that never came. The rail company finally gave up on their bus at 2am and just sent a cab to come get us and take us directly to Oxford. A one-hour trip turned into a six-hour quest. Still though, when I got into bed at 3:30am, knowing that I had to get up in 2 hours to hit the river, I was happy we took the trip to see the pile of rocks.

Salisbury Cathedral

The view from inside...totally gorgeous.

While walking around the cathedral grounds, I captured this completely spontaneous, unplanned shot of Will, deep in thought about cathedrals, no doubt.

The Snyders in Salisbury.

School is Cool.

My class - Pythagoras, Eunsook, Shuo, Michelle, Zulaa, me, Jennifer, Hubert, Mutaki, (and Amita is taking the picture).

I had to write at least one post describing how ridiculously fantastic my professors are here. Seriously. I'm really enjoying my classes, and they are probably the main reason why. My supervisor, David (still not totally comfortable calling these esteemed, brilliant Oxford professors by their first name, but I'm trying), took his four supervisees (that includes me!) out to lunch this week at Kellogg College where he is the Dean, to discuss our dissertations and life in general. It is just so neat to have a professor take so much interest in your learning and progress. It would be impossible for us not to succeed (or at least pass!) with his guidance. Also, he decided that we could have a tutorial class instead of a regular lecture class for the next few weeks (since we are learning about the English educational tutorial system -- which involves meeting with a professor one-on-one or with a couple of students, the way all Oxford undergraduate students do it). So, four of us met in his office to discuss the reading for the week and the essays we wrote (we write an essay each week on a topic from our reading). What an opportunity to have such a small group discussion with a leading researcher/professor in the field. I learned more that week -- during the preparation for that intense tutorial and during the tutorial itself -- than I had in all the other lectures I attended. And right after, David made tea, so we drank tea and ate homemade cookies that my classmate had baked. What an experience.

My other professor, Hubert, is equally as fabulous. Aside from giving us interesting projects and having interactive discussion classes each week, he even took the whole class on a walking tour of Oxford, just to show us around. And, he took us on a class field trip to Littlemore to see where Cardinal Newman lived, studied, and wrote. We studied Newman's book The Idea of a University, so it was pretty neat to learn more about his life and see where it all happened. After the tour given by the nuns who live at St. Mary's (including having tea and biscuits in Newman's study and praying in his chapel -- too cool), Hubert sat with us at a pub until the bus came. The two vivid memories I have of that evening were hearing New Kids on the Block blast in the 15th century pub and then running to chase the bus as it started to take off without us. Luckily, my shiny wellies are easy to run in. The bus driver must have heard my shrieking or the banging of my frozen hands on the bus as it drove off, because he actually stopped for us. I was a hero to my classmates who couldn't run as quickly. (They weren't wearing wellies.)

Jennifer, me, and Michelle with the Cardinal.

Having tea and biscuits in Newman's study.

Reading Newman's book in his study...

Standing outside of the Divinity School next to the Sheldonian.

The dining hall at Jesus College.

Jesus College est. 1571.

The library at Exeter College est. 1314.